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| Europe |
| Crusading Spanish judge ousted for using wiretaps |
| 2012-02-10 |
| Judge Baltasar Garzon, renowned for indicting late Chilean dictator Pinochet, may be facing the end of his career on the bench after ThursdayÂ’s ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court barring him from the judiciary for 11 years. Garzon violated the constitutional rights of defendants in a corruption case when he ordered their communications monitored during pre-trial detention, the Spanish Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling. By recording the jailed defendantsÂ’ telephone calls, Garzon hampered their right to a defense "without any reason that could be minimally acceptable," concluded the high court. Garzon argued during the trial that it was necessary to monitor the defendantsÂ’ communication to ensure they did not continue to operate their purported criminal enterprise while imprisoned. Suspended in 2010, Garzon will now be stripped of his judgeship on SpainÂ’s National Court, established to deal with terrorism as well as major drug and corruption cases. The magistrate who indicted Pinochet and successfully prosecuted Al Qaeda and ETA terrorists still awaits a verdict in a case brought against him for allegedly violating a 1977 amnesty law by initiating investigations of the crimes of the Franco regime. Another trial, in which Garzon is charged with accepting improper payments for speeches, is ongoing. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #7 I think it was not Garzon but Pedraz. |
| Posted by: JFM 2012-02-10 12:39 |
| #6 Don't forget how he tried to get some a bunch of US officials on charges for Guantanamo. No Tears here. |
| Posted by: Fat Bob Unotch3711 2012-02-10 12:19 |
| #5 You miss the point entirely, badanov. Imprimus: Iron Felix did not enjoy that he did---he just saw it as his revolutionary duty. The point is that both used their position to promote ideological agenda to the exclusion of everything else. And, I have to say, given the respective constraints under which the two operated---Garzon achieved a hell of a lot more than Dzerzhinsky would've managed in his position. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-02-10 08:43 |
| #4 I meant Polish nobility |
| Posted by: badanov 2012-02-10 06:55 |
| #3 That's just dumb, grom. Garzon is a preening fame seeking dolt who would kill his own family for just one minute in front of a TV camera. To compare him with a member of Russian nobility who had a bloody streak about his person, is to give Garzon a mantle of competence he simply doesn't have. |
| Posted by: badanov 2012-02-10 06:47 |
| #2 For some reason, this sounds very familiar. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-02-10 06:12 |
| #1 Like foreseen the MSM tells nothing even close to the truth. Let's see what happened about that investigation over franquist crimes. Thre was a demand of an investigation for "abductions" for republicans who had disappeared in the naionalist zone during the Civil War. Garzon just sat on the case for eighteen months. After that Garzon begins requiring information about other disappearings. Just a problem Garzon was not competent for it: he was an instruction, judge for terrorist acts and plots for overthrowing the government. After several months of doing nothing he seized the case alleging that the 1936 uprisng was plot against the government so he was competent for instructing a case against its authors. (note that this has nothing to do with finding the whereabouts of the corpses I mentionned) By the way there had been an amnesty covering the crimes of both sides and that several years earlier tha same Garzon had invoked that amnesty for refusing to prosecute Santiago Carrillo, head of the Spanish Communist Party and alleged author of the massacres of Paracuellos aka the Spanish Katyn. In the act whre he declared himself competent Garzon naed over thirty people but menionning iot was notorious they were dead. He then required the certificate of death fo Franco. Never mind that in addition to his death being quite notorious Franco would have been 110 years old. A month later after having done zero, zilch, nada except fotr asking Franco's certificate he alleged that given that everyone in his list of people was dead the case was extinguished and he was closed it. Just publicity at tax payer's expense and against the law. Some links in Spanish: http://www.abc.es/20100522/opinion-tercera/garzon-nunca-investigo-crimenes-20100522.html (MSM) http://www.ishkarioth.com/advocatus/2010/05/errores_garzon/ (Blog) |
| Posted by: JFM 2012-02-10 02:45 |